Ciaran didn’t want to discuss this in front of Dylan. “We can talk about that later,” he tried.
“What voice?” Dylan asked warily.
“The woman I heard,” Sawyer answered. “Her name. She didn’t tell me, exactly, but I somehow just know it from hearing her in my head.”
“You called her an old god,” Ciaran offered, voice barely a whisper.
Sawyer’s eyes caught Ciaran’s. “I did? I don’t remember that.”
Sawyer was smiling, but Ciaran couldn’t even force himself to reciprocate. He glanced at Dylan. This was not good...
“Her name?” Dylan asked, voice eerily detached.
He didn’t need to ask.
He knew it already.
They all did.
Sawyer looked at Ciaran, perhaps confused by Ciaran’s trepidation, which hehadto have been able to feel, answered anyway. “Lusca.”
Dylan was pale and silent. Ciaran closed his eyes slowly wishing he could turn back time, to even a minute ago, to before Sawyer had said that name out loud, before he’d made it real.
“Dylan,” Kellan said.
But Dylan took a step back, a look of horror on his face, then ran out of the room.
Ciaran stood up, but Kellan raised his hand. “I’ll go after him,” he said. “Stay here, rest easy. We’ll talk again soon.”
Then Kellan was gone, and Ciaran sat back on the bed with a heavy sigh.
“Is Dylan okay?” Sawyer asked. “He freaked out in Hobart when those other guys said she was coming.”
Ciaran sighed. “He has anxiety. He’s always had nightmares, and his imagination gets the better of him....” Ciaran shrugged.“Kellan and Hendrix usually talk him down or go freeform with him for a while. It helps.”
Sawyer slid his hand into Ciaran’s and gave it a squeeze. “Kellan’s good with him.”
“He is.”
They were quiet for a moment, then Sawyer sighed. “So I really said Lusca was an old god,” Sawyer murmured. “Like, an old Nordic god? Is that... is that what we’re facing here?”
Ciaran gave a nod and took Sawyer’s hand, pressing his lips to his knuckles, not so much for Sawyer’s comfort as for his own. “She has had many names,” he said, voice detached even to his own ears. “Throughout history. From many different cultures.”
“Scandinavian cultures,” Sawyer surmised. “What the hell is she doing down here?”
“There’s a trench off the southwest continental shelf of Tasmania, toward Antarctica,” Ciaran said. “The Tasman Fracture trench. It’s deep. And it’s grown silent, like all marine life has up and left.”
“Animals know,” Sawyer whispered. “Animals know before disaster strikes. Like the forest.”
Ciaran nodded. “Yes.”
“But you guys don’t? Don’t you have octo-senses that tell you when there’s gonna be an earthquake or something?”
Ciaran almost smiled. “Not like that.”
“But....” His eyebrows furrowed. “If the marine life has gone and left already, that means it’s imminent, right? Like, any day now? Not weeks away.”
Ciaran met his gaze. “Probably. It would make sense. But we don’t know for certain.”
